It looks like someone I have seen before. I would need to research that but I cannot find Le Leme on a map.

As for the buttons, there was far more flexibility in terms of tailoring in those days (precisely because most suits were bespoke). It looks to me like a classic (albeit narrow) 3/2 double breasted suit where the bottom two buttons were removed – or never put on, really. It is actually fairly late that the English practice of buttoning the bottom button on a 3/2 caught up in France. Such suits used to be buttoned via the middle button only. At some point the Duke of York (or the Duke of Windsor?) started to button only the bottom button (not the middle one) & this is when French tailors started to add the bottom two buttons (with a buttonhole, often absent before that)…I still think it best to button only the middle button! But I am (a) a traditionalist when it comes to suits & (b) a bit taller than average so I don't need to lengthen my silhouette.

All of these vintage photos make my head swirl between longing for the elegance, quality and apparent individuality of the past, against the comfort and freedom of today. Not that any of the vintage people really look that uncomfortable. I guess I'm thinking I would be uncomfortable, esp. in the small town where I live, if I dressed up that much. Hmmm, food for thought.

I love the fact that these photographs are safe and salvaged from an undignified future in some dark, forgotten, solitary place.The elegant man from the past deserves to be inspected, having so much inspiration to give.